


take your old life, put a line through it

by summerwoodsmoke



Series: world keeps spinning [1]
Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Pre-Series, a study in discovering who you are and who you want to be when all you've known is crime school, carmen sandiego's never-ending tour BEFORE vile was footing the bill, constructing the carmen sandiego persona, to the best of my abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 18:35:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21342817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerwoodsmoke/pseuds/summerwoodsmoke
Summary: Carmen flees the Isle of VILE with Player at her metaphorical side. In the year following, he never leaves it.
Relationships: Player & Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep
Series: world keeps spinning [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673515
Comments: 35
Kudos: 237





	take your old life, put a line through it

**Author's Note:**

> we can do anything if we put our minds to it  
take your old life, then you put a line through it  
[...]  
so come away, starting today  
start a new life together in a different place  
—eastside; benny blanco, khalid, halsey

Player stays up with her all night while she drives the boat. She’s never been more grateful for her stolen phone than tonight. 

As soon as he’d pinpointed her location in the Canary Islands, she asked him to pick a place for her to head to, preferably one that wouldn’t be V.I.L.E.’s first guess. Within minutes, he had her setting her course for Essaouira, Morocco. An ancient coastal city that, unlike the closer and much bigger city of Agadir, didn’t have a major highway attached to it.

“Still going the right direction?” she asks now. It’s been hours in the dark with nothing but the hum of the engine and Player’s quiet company.

“Northeast, yup,” Player replies, then his voice softens, “Don’t worry, you’re almost there.”

_I sound that tired, huh_. She smiles. “Thanks for keeping me company.”

“‘Course,” he replies easily. “We’re in this together.”

They met when he was twelve and she was sixteen. By the time she became an official student at the academy, she was seventeen. And now she was a runaway at eighteen, and her only friend in the whole world was a fourteen year old voice on a phone. 

It didn’t matter, though. He was right. Of course they were in this together—they always had been. 

She smiles. “Thanks,” she says, softer this time. She leans on the lever a bit, resting her head on her arms. “Really.”

A pause, then he says, “Yeah.” She gets it, and knows he gets it too. _Yeah_. 

———

The very first thing Player has her do once she’s ditched the boat is get herself a hotel room and some sleep. He remote hacks an ATM for her and spits out enough money so she can get by. She agrees to it all on the condition that he also gets some sleep. She’s not sure what time it is in Niagara, but she knows it can’t be good that he’s been up this whole time.

When she wakes up fifteen hours later, Player is already awake and ready with his second request. 

“Are you sure on the name you picked?“ he asks, more serious than she’d expect from him. “I just wanna make sure your name is something you actually want to live with before I go making you ID.”

She walks over to the table and picks up the hat, brushing the label with a finger. Maybe it was a dumb way to pick a name, but hey, her whole life had been full of dumb things, right from the beginning when an evil mastermind decided picking up a baby off the street was a good idea, so she figures she has a leg to stand on. 

And, Carmen—she really likes the sound of that name. Hard and soft and musical all at once, and the name of a very popular opera to boot. Sandiego has a nice flow to it too. She smirks a bit and sets down the hat. “Yeah,” she says to Player. “I’m sure.”

“Call you Carmen?” he asks, slightly teasing, but she can tell he’s genuinely asking, like he wants to double-check and make sure. 

She nods even though he can’t tell. She’s grinning; she can’t believe how lucky she is that this amazing guy is and was her first friend ever. “Call me Carmen,” she confirms, and it feels so _right_. 

———

“Can I ask your name, or do you wanna keep it on the DL?” Carmen asks. She’s sitting in an uncomfortable airport seat in Casablanca, waiting for a layover to Montreal to arrive. 

She hears an exhale of breath over the line: not necessarily negative or positive, just an exhalation of breath. “You can ask, but that doesn’t mean I’ll tell you,” he says teasingly, and Carmen rolls her eyes. 

“Okay,” she replies mockingly, sarcastic, expecting some sort of punchline, “What’s your name?”

“How about I tell you when you get here?” he replies almost instantly. 

A few seconds of silence pass before Carmen realizes that’s on her. “Wha?” she asks eloquently. 

“Yeah,” Player says casually. “I figured...it would be safer if we met up to move the hard drive, instead of you leaving it at a drop site or something, you know? You may be a professional, but I’m just a kid with a computer.”

“So you do...wanna meet up?” Carmen asks slowly. “For real?”

“Yeah,” Player says, a bit awkward. “If...you’d want that?”

“Yeah!” Carmen replies immediately. “Yes, I wanna do that! Let’s meet up! Oh man, have you done the touristy stuff for the Falls? You probably have, right? I’d love to check them out...” she trails off, realizing she’s rambled. “Although, a gigantic public centre probably isn’t the best place to do an exchange with you.”

“Are you worried about them watching? And I have, to answer your question.”

“I mean, yeah, a bit. But there’s no way to know for sure if they are. You have what?”

“Done the touristy stuff, I went with my family when I was like, nine? But I’d like to do it again with you if you wanted.”

Carmen can’t help but smile. “Aw, you’d leave your cave for me?”

“_Whatever_.”

Carmen laughs, and feels untethered. 

———

They do end up meeting at the Falls. Neither of them are exactly rolling in money, and although Player could just _get_ more money whenever they wanted, it doesn’t feel right to do it when it’s for fun rather than survival. So, they don’t get to do the boat ride right up to the falls, but they _do_ go behind the falls. Which probably wasn’t a smart decision in December, but she’s grinning so hard she barely notices her chattering teeth, or how Player laughs at her. 

After, they go to a mall and warm up with pizza. For a single afternoon, they are little more than two friends just hanging out. At some point he puts a new phone on the table, and when they hug ‘goodbye’, he tells her to come to the address programmed into it that evening. She does, and finds herself in a neighbourhood nestled between gas stations and a hospital.

She sneaks around the side of the house she’s been directed to and climbs up to his window. Sliding it open, she says quietly, “Didja miss me?” and cackles when Player jumps a foot off his chair. 

“Geez, Carmen, give a guy some warning!”

“Now where would be the fun in that?” She hands the phone back over and watches him power it down, take the SIM card out. 

“Pull up a chair,” Player says as he puts the phone away. Carmen looks around the slightly cluttered room and finds a stool to drag over.

“So,” she says matter-of-factly as she opens her backpack and pulls out the hard drive. “Wanna trade? I hear you got a name or something like that?” She says it light and teasing, just in case he’s changed his mind. 

His eyes go wide at the sight of the hard drive, and she almost doesn’t expect an answer. He reaches out, and right as his fingers fold around the drive, he tells her, says it easy as breathing, like it’s nothing at all. 

He looks up and meets her eye, so much trust in his gaze, and Carmen smiles. She never even knew she was missing this until she had it with him. She never even knew it was possible. She’s not gonna do anything to squander it. 

———

“So you’ll be like the Alfred to my Batman?” Carmen teases. Its hours later now, and they’ve been discussing everything from future anti-V.I.L.E. strategies they wanna use to weird stories from their childhoods. She’s moved from the tiny stool to his bed, leaning back on her elbows. Player’s slouched so deep in his chair, she’s kinda worried he’ll fall asleep like that. But neither of them really want to stop talking.

“Mm, more like the Oracle to your Black Canary, I’d say,” he says thoughtfully.

What. “What.”

Player meets her eyes, briefly as confused as she is, before he smirks. “Right, basic pop culture references only. Yeah, Alfred works.”

She blinks. “Okay, now you _gotta_ tell me about whoever you said.”

He lights up at that, spinning to grab his laptop before crashing down next to her on his bed. “Oh man, I think you’d _love_ them, they’re such a cool team.”

———

He falls asleep with his laptop open. It’s after 3AM, so she’s not surprised. She’s definitely ready for some sleep, too. She closes the laptop and moves it to his desk. 

She sits next to him, studying his face. Relaxed in sleep like this, he looks younger, more tired. He’s only fourteen. How can she bring him into this, this giant mess she’s determined to fight?

But it’s his own choice. Before today, they were just voices on a phone to each other. He could’ve cut her off if he wanted. But he didn’t. _He gave her his name_. That wasn’t something a mere acquaintance did, nor a simple coworker. 

Carmen rubs at her eyes. She’s called Player her friend for years now, but it feels more real than it ever has before, more real than anything else in her life right now. He is her _friend_. Carmen smiles a bit, then glances around the room. A friend wouldn’t mind sharing a bed, right? Wouldn’t want her to sleep on the floor? Or maybe she should just move to the floor, that would probably be more polite, right?

Carmen’s so tired, she’s asleep next to him before she can debate it with herself any further. 

———

Player deduces that it’s gonna take him a bit of time to even decrypt anything on the hard drive, let alone use the info to find her something to do. 

“And I shouldn’t stay in Niagara Falls for much longer,” Carmen says. After that first night of accidentally falling asleep on his bed, she went to the hostel. She doesn’t want to risk his safety any more than she has to, and they definitely don’t want Player’s parents finding out about her. She usually sneaks out once he’s called down for dinner; she’s glad it’s winter, because it’s already pitch black by then and she doesn’t feel so conspicuous when she heads back to the hostel. The hostel has a final check in time each night, and if it was summer, she’s not sure if she’d be able to justify heading out to see Player if she always had to move in the daylight. She’s wanted to spend as much time with him as possible.

“Right. We’ve had good luck so far, but we probably don’t wanna push it.”

“What should I do in the meantime?”

“Well, is there anywhere you wanna go, anything you wanna see?”

Carmen’s mind races. The better question would be what does she _not_ want to see. “Everything,” she breathes, “I want to see everything.”

Player considers this, then pulls out his laptop again. She wonders why he keeps going for that instead of using his probably faster desktop, but then he sits next to her again, and a weird bubbly feeling swells in her chest, so she doesn’t say anything. 

After a minute of typing, he turns the laptop towards her and says, “What if you did this?” The site he has up says Via Rail at the top, and The Canadian underneath it. 

“What’s this?” she asks, intrigued. 

“A cross-country passenger train. Or, mostly cross-country. From Toronto to Vancouver. It’d be a perfect way for you to travel and sightsee, for Canada at least!” He scrolls down the page a bit, letting her see glimpses of the route’s information and pictures of gorgeous views. She knows Canada is known for its natural beauty; she wonders how accurate these pictures are. “What do you think?” Player asks. 

She tilts her head a bit and smiles. “I think it’s a great idea.”

———

The Canadian—the train she’s on—has many perks, but WiFi is not one of them. She has her trusty phone, of course, but Player gives her a second one as well, one he says has a plan with data she’s free to use for whatever she likes. He also gives her his laptop, which she tries to refuse, but he insists. 

“It’s loaded with all sorts of movies and shows and comics,” he explains. “You can check ‘em out and see what you like for yourself. And, y’know,” he shrugs, his hands tucked into his hoodie pocket, his eyes on the ground. “When you do have WiFi, we can video call on there, it’ll be better than just a phone call. If you want!”

Carmen looks at the laptop, then back to Player. After a second’s hesitation, she pulls him into a hug. She hears him gasp, then feels his arms wrap around her. “I’d like that,” she says. “Thank you.” It feels inadequate, but it’s all she has. Player holds her tight and doesn’t say a word.

———

The train ride is beautiful in winter. Carmen imagines it’s probably beautiful year round, but she feels like she lucked out, doing this in December. The first day on the train, she spends almost entirely staring out the window at snow-covered fields or texting Player, who’s doing schoolwork. She’s learned that he’s homeschooled, which explains how he can get away with spending so much time on other things, but she still thinks he should graduate. He lets her know he thinks he’s making progress on the hard drive, but she tells him not to let it worry him. 

_We have time_, she sends him, although she’s not sure she believes it herself. But he’s only fourteen. He has a normal life, somewhat. She wants him to keep that. 

The first night on the train doesn’t go quite as well. She has nightmares that wake her up multiple times, leaving her exhausted when they reach Sioux Lookout by late the next morning. 

Why _now_, she wonders. Why not right after she left the Isle of V.I.L.E.? It’s been a couple of weeks, so why did her brain decide to give her Shadowsan testing her with an enormous empty coat, and Gray killing that archaeologist right in front of her, and Tigress cutting her parachute strings, and Coach Brunt—

“Hey,” Player’s voice says in her ear. She has her earphones in so they can talk while she eats lunch. Right. She’d been doing that. 

Carmen picks up an apple slice. “Hey, sorry,” she replies. 

“You doing okay?”

She pops the apple in her mouth and chews to give herself some time. The answer is no, and the long answer is, I don’t think I’ve ever been okay, and the even longer answer is, how can someone raised like me possibly function like a normal person? What even makes a normal person? You were the first normal person I met, and you were committing a crime when we did. You keep stealing for me, to help me, and I left V.I.L.E. because I didn’t want to steal for them. And I think despite all that, my subconscious has decided you are safe, and I felt fine when I was with you, slept great while I was with you, but now I’m moving farther away from you by the second and I dunno how I’m gonna do this—

She swallows the apple. “No, not great,” she says. “But I’ll be okay.”

———

“Wow,” Carmen whispers.

“What’s up?” Player asks.

“The sunrise. Player, this is amazing. Thank you for suggesting this train ride. It’s perfect.”

Player laughs a bit. “Aw, shucks. Only the best sightseeing for my best friend.” A pause, then he asks quietly, “What’s it look like?”

Carmen blinks a few times. “The sun’s reflecting off the snow so much I keep seeing spots, but I can’t bring myself look away. It makes the snow look blue and orange. And it just goes on and on...I knew the prairies were flat, but this is crazy. It’s like there’s no horizon.” She laughs and squints her eyes. “Definitely no horizon when the sun’s blinding me like this.”

Laughing, Player says, “Look away, then!”

“No way! I’m not missing this!” _I want to see everything_, she’d said. She plans to. Carmen lifts a hand to shade her eyes. 

“Hey,” Player says.

“Mm?”

“Can you tell me what’s wrong now?” His voice sounds a bit...smaller, as he asks, like he’s not sure he really wants the answer, or maybe like he’s not sure Carmen will give it to him. “Something’s seemed off with you today and yesterday. Are you sure the train ride’s okay? ‘Cause we can work something out if it’s not—”

“Player,” Carmen interrupts. “It’s fine. The train’s fine,” she corrects herself, “I promise. I just...I haven’t slept well the past two nights.” He stays silent, like he knows there’s more to it. Carmen sighs and turns away from the sun and snow. “I’ve been having nightmares. About V.I.L.E. Island, and all of that.”

“Do you...want to talk about it?” he asks hesitantly. 

Carmen winces a bit. _Only fourteen, he’s only fourteen_. The Cleaners tossed her off a cliff in her nightmares last night. “I don’t wanna burden you.”

“You’re not! You wouldn’t!” Player says, far from hesitant now. “Carmen, you’re my _best friend_, and you have been for two years! I wanna help you because I care about you!”

Carmen’s chest aches. “You’re my best friend, too,” she says quietly.

“So, tell me,” he implores.

Carmen sighs and leans her head against the window, and begins with, “I keep dreaming about it. About everything that happened, and some things that didn’t happen. My literal worst nightmares.”

She talks for the better part of an hour, and Player, godsend that he is, listens the whole time.

———

After the train leaves her in Vancouver, Carmen heads down to Seattle. She’s not exactly sure where she wants to go next, but Seattle seems like a good stepping point to either head south or back east again. She visits a Starbucks and notices her barista has the same name as Player. The name she has never once said out loud.

“Hey,” she says once she’s sitting with her drink and muffin. “I never even asked, but,” Carmen pauses, “Is it alright that I still call you Player? You prefer that, right?”

Player waits a second before answering. “Yeah, I think so. I'm glad you know my name, but I also like that you call me Player. It’s...specific to you. To this part of my life. I like that.”

Carmen feels the tension fade from her shoulders. “Good. I like it too.” And, the well-trained part of her adds, it’s safer this way. Code names are always safer. Carmen shakes her head and focuses on her muffin.

———

“Have you thought about how exactly you wanna go about these eventual capers?”

“What do you mean?” Carmen asks absentmindedly. She’s been flipping through the channels on her hotel room TV for the last hour, describing what she was seeing to Player and letting him guess what show or movie was on, then letting him share random facts about it, if he knew any. 

“I mean like, are you gonna put all your stealth skills to use and hope that not even V.I.L.E. notices what you’re up to?” 

Carmen snorts. “I may be good, but I don’t think I’m that good. Not up against all of V.I.L.E. No, I doubt the stealth angle will work. But…” She looks across her room to where Cookie Booker’s coat is hanging in the closet. “Maybe I should just lean in the opposite direction.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Flashy instead of stealthy. Wear something like what I wore when I left—red jacket, red fedora.”

Player chuckles. “Well, that’s definitely got a dramatic flare to it. Would certainly get their attention. 

“Exactly.” Carmen smiles. “V.I.L.E. is definitely a group that thrives on going unnoticed. I think we could afford to bring some attention to their exploits.”

———

From Seattle, she had decided on going south. The plan was to go all the way down to Mexico City, then head back up through Texas. She’d stopped in San Diego to buy more jackets and fedoras, ones that actually fit her properly. 

She’d also, after discussing it with Player, decided on ordering a wig. Nothing too crazy, just something a bit darker in colour than her natural hair, and a _lot_ longer and thicker than her own hair currently was. She hadn’t had hair below her shoulders since she was eight, and she really wanted it again, and who was stopping her? With that decided, she’d begun to have a specific idea of what Carmen Sandiego, Professional Thief, would look like, so she chose to get a wig to help achieve that look until her hair was long enough for her to do it herself. 

The wig was a surprisingly expensive custom order. “I could’ve told you it wouldn’t come cheap,” Player tells her.

“Why exactly does it cost so much?”

“Well, if you want a cheap wig, you can get one in about two minutes if you go find a Party City. But cheap wigs don’t look real, which is the problem. You want something natural looking, something that looks how you see yourself looking on your own in the near future, right?”

“Right,” Carmen confirms.

“Right. So that means hand-made, from human hair. Which is also the best option to wear during all the physical work you’ll probably be doing.”

All Carmen can do is blink. “You know, I’m surprised Countess Cleo didn’t teach us this. She taught us how to put on and wear wigs, but she didn’t explain how they were made, or different types or anything.”

“I think it’s safe to say that a _countess_ taught you how to work with the most expensive option available. So you’ll probably be fine.”

Carmen snorts. She hasn’t told Player all that much about her teachers, mostly complains about Shadowsan, but even so, he has Countess Cleo _nailed._

———

“So, it looks like V.I.L.E. stole some printing plates from the U.S. Treasury,” Player says blandly.

“You’re kidding.” Carmen says to the orange in her hand before placing it back on its booth. Having finished in San Diego, she’s moved south to Tijuana, and is spending the morning exploring a farmer’s market.

“I wish. I’ve found evidence of money drops all over the globe, all originating from the same place. The only problem is, I can’t figure out where that place _is_.”

Carmen sighs. “Well, creating your own printing press for one of the world’s most well-known currencies is certainly one way to keep your bank account happy.”

“No kidding. And yet they make cashiers test random shoppers’ bills.”

Carmen actually doesn’t know what he means by that, but decides to ask him later. “So, what’s the next step for finding the press from here?”

Player hums. “I’m not done going through all the files yet, so that’s first. I might run into a direct record or file on the press.”

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed.” On the edge of the market, Carmen spots a food cart. “In the meantime, I am craving carnitas.”

Player groans. “Ugh, no fair. Get a double order and enjoy some on my behalf. It’s the least you could do.”

Carmen smirks. “Of course, _anything_ for my best friend!”

———

Two days out from Guadalajara, Carmen’s old earphones give up the ghost. She can still text Player, and really, she can talk to him without earphones if she wants to, but it’s not as private as she would like—or polite to her fellow bus riders. After half a day of texting, Player suggests getting communicators. 

Carmen, confused, asks, _Like...a phone?_

_No, like spy gadgets! earpieces,_ he sends back.

“Okay, that makes sense,” Carmen murmurs to herself. Player works some of his magic to get an order placed so that Carmen can pick it up within a day of arriving in the city. When she goes to the shop, she’s expecting something similar to her earphones, just without the wire. Something she’ll tuck into her ear. 

Instead, she’s handed a pair of earrings.

“Uh,” she says, confused. 

“What?” Player asks in her ear—the first thing she’d done once she’d arrived was buy a new pair of earphones.

“They gave me earrings?” she asks. To the woman behind the desk, she asks in Spanish, “Are you sure this is the right order?”

“Yes, that’s right!” Player says as the woman double checks her order sheet and confirms it. Carmen shrugs, pays and thanks the woman, and heads out. 

Once she’s walking down the street, she says, “Alright, explain why you bought me earrings.”

“They’re communicator devices! They’re implanted with two-way radios that I’ll walk you through calibrating with what I have on my end. It’s like the technology that people like security guards or secret agents use, just smaller and hidden better. It’ll be perfect once you start going on heists,” he says proudly. “This way, your ears are clear to hear your surroundings, but we can also keep in constant contact.”

“All that, and my favourite colour too,” Carmen murmurs. The earrings look like false precious stones to her, a deep garnet colour. Player laughs. 

They have them set up by that night, and Carmen puts them in immediately. After that, Player tells her he’ll always leave the commlink on. Always. It doesn’t matter where in the world Carmen is, what time of day or year it is for him, he leaves it on. Carmen wonders briefly at first if it’s too much to ask for, if she seems as desperate for his attention as she feels, but Player tells her he’s doing it before she can even figure out how to ask, with no fuss, with the expectation that Carmen will always ask for help when she needs it, and with the apology that he won’t always be there. 

“Of course not,” Carmen assures him. “I wouldn’t expect you to be. I don’t want the rest of your life to fall apart or shrink just ‘cause you made friends with a thief.”

“An anti-thief!” he corrects loyalty. “A white hat thief, if you will.” 

Carmen can’t help but smile. “Not that I’ve really done much thieving _or _anti-thieving yet.”

Player takes that as an opportunity to update her on his work with the hard drive, and while he does so, Carmen notices a man, at the next table over in the café she’s in, giving her a funny look. Specifically, looking at her like she’s weird...probably, she realizes after a second, because she’s sitting alone, talking to herself, without a phone, earphones, or bluetooth device in sight.

Carmen closes her eyes and sighs.

“I know,” Player commiserates. “But I’ll get there, I know it!”

“No, it’s not that—although I definitely believe you’ll get there soon, don’t worry about that.” Carmen presses a finger to her ear and turns slightly away from the man. “I just realized I’m getting funny looks for talking to myself in public. How do you feel about switching to the phone?”

A beat passes, then Player bursts out laughing. Carmen tries to resist, but gives in and smiles, even as she rolls her eyes.

———

“Hey, uh,” Player asks one day while she’s shopping in Dallas, “How do you feel about nicknames?”

Carmen freezes with the dress she was looking at in her hand, her breath catching in her throat. _Lambkins _rings in her ears, and visions of failure race through her mind.

“Okay,” Player says after a second. “Going off that response, I’m going to assume you don’t like them, which is cool! I just wondered!”

Carmen inhales. “No! No, it’s okay! I just...you know, I guess it’s just weird for me, since the name I’ve had up until incredibly recently was ‘Black Sheep’. You assumed it was a code name when we first met,” she reminds him. She won’t tell him that sometimes she forgets to respond to _Carmen_, sometimes still dreams about life as Black Sheep. She hangs the dress back on the rack and pulls down a different one, clears her throat. “What sort of nickname were you thinking of?” she asks quietly.

“It’s probably silly,” Player hedges.

“No, I wanna know! I really do like nicknames, I promise.” She forgets most of the time that Gray’s—_Crackle’s _name is actually Graham, but she started calling him Gray and it’d just _stuck._ But she doesn’t need to think about that right now.

Carmen takes down another outfit, something that looks like a dress at first glance but is more like a jumpsuit with a skirt/shorts thing going on. It’s cute, and even better, it’s red. She makes a satisfied little hum and adds it to her ‘try on’ pile.

“Well, as we’ve been getting you more supplies and clothes and stuff, I’ve noticed a recurring theme,” Player explains.

Carmen finds a red belt in the accessories section, adds it to her pile after a few seconds of pondering. She’d have to find a non-red outfit to wear it with but that wouldn’t be too hard. “Oh, yeah? What’s that? ‘Must-have products for all super thieves’?” She wanders to the fitting rooms as she talks. It’s a small store, so she just helps herself to one of the two stalls.

“They’re all red,” Player says bluntly. Carmen pauses in hanging up all her options on the hooks in the stall. Looks at all the items she’s brought with her. He can’t see her right now, they’re using the commlinks today, and yet somehow he knows! She can only be thankful he can’t see her face, because it is now also red.

“Okay,” she says after a few seconds. “Fair point.”

She must sound so awkward saying it; she _feels_ awkward, vaguely embarrassed in a way she’s not familiar with. Player bursts out laughing, but it doesn’t sound malicious, just warm and deep, like it’s coming from his belly. Maybe that’s the difference. This isn’t her being judged. Just...noticed.

Carmen drops her head in her hands and laughs along with him.

“So, how do you feel about Red?”

“As a nickname?” Carmen laughs and sits down, studying all the things she’s surrounded her with. “I don’t think it’s a bad one at all.”

“That’s good, ‘cause I’ve nearly been calling you Red for days now!” They’re still laughing, like they’ve been hit with a case of the giggles.

“You know, I really do like it,” Carmen says when she calms a bit.

“Yeah?” Player asks.

“Yeah. Like everything else that’s red, it’s something that belongs to my new life. Something that belongs to Carmen, and only Carmen. I like that.”

Carmen can tell he’s smiling when he says, “I do too.”

———

“Alright,” Player says confidently. “I did it!”

Carmen yawns. “Player, it’s five AM. Did you get _any _sleep?”

“Oh, geez, sorry Red, I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“So early, you mean,” Carmen grumbles. “I’m tempted to refuse to listen to you until you get some sleep.”

“Nope!” Player immediately says with a pop. “I can promise you now I won’t do it, this is way too big.”

Carmen yawns again, but she’s definitely awake now. She’s in Atlanta, Georgia, so they’re in the same time zone, which is unfortunate for both of them, apparently. She pulls herself out of bed and turns on the hotel room’s coffee machine.

“Alright,” she says. “Hit me.”

“So, remember how we were talking about checking out the dark web the other day?” 

“I do,” she grants him. She’d been in New Orleans at the time, just in time for Mardi Gras. _That_ was hard to forget.

“I did some research first, just for pointers and stuff, so last night I did it and holy crap, Carmen, I should’ve done this from the get-go!”

“So it helped?” she asks as she pours herself a cup.

“_Yeah,_ it did! I guess it can be hard to see it if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but seriously, the amount of chatter about V.I.L.E. online is...insane.”

Carmen raises her eyebrows. “That _is _surprising. But more importantly, useful, right?”

“Right,” Player confirms. “And I found out where the next drop from their printing press is gonna be.”

“...so it’s time to plan our first caper?” Carmen almost can’t believe she’s finally saying the words.

“It’s time to plan our first caper,” Player repeats. “Carmen, get ready to head to Beantown.”

———

It’s...a bit hard to adjust to not travelling alone. To having other people around outside of the virtual bubble she and Player have been living in for months. The first time Zack asks who she’s talking to, she says ‘no one’. The second time, she says ‘need to know only’. The third, all she does is stare at nothing and wonder if this whole ‘taking along untrained strays’ thing was really such a good idea. 

When they finally get to a hotel, Carmen shuts the door to her bedroom and screams into a pillow for ten seconds before pulling herself together. 

“Long day?” Player asks delicately. 

“Very,” Carmen replies emphatically. 

“Is this about Zack?”

She sighs. “In part, yes.”

Silence in her ear. Then, sounding more hesitant than she’s heard him since he offered her his hometown and physical presence, he asks, “Do you...not want them to know about me?”

A pang hits Carmen deep. She’s familiar with the feeling of being in the way, of feeling left out and unknowable. Unwanted. “No, of course not,” she replies quickly. “I just...didn’t know what you would be comfortable with. It’s your decision, not mine.”

“Oh,” he says quietly. 

Carmen sprawls on her back. “And we were travelling all day, so I never had the chance to ask you what _you_ wanted without them hearing, so no matter how often Zack asked, my answer didn’t change, and—” Carmen lets out a frustrated groan. 

“Sorry,” Player says ruefully. 

“No! No, it’s not your fault. This is kinda new territory for both of us. Or, all of us, I should say. Do you want to think about what you’re okay with them knowing?”

Player hums in her ear. “I think so. I’ll let you know soon. But in the meantime, you can tell them you have a _brilliant_ partner in crime who is the _greatest_ white hat hacker you have ever met.”

Carmen snorts. “And also the _only_.”

“Eh, details,” he says dismissively. Carmen laughs. “Now go, my minion, and spread my good word.” Dropping his put-on voice, he adds, “And I’ll let you know tomorrow. Promise.”

“Of course,” Carmen replies. “No rush.”

———

Carmen, Zack, and Ivy all crash right on the floor of their hotel suite when they get back from the Swiss National Bank heist in Bern. The adrenaline levels Carmen has had all day are off the charts, and now she feels so wiped, she can’t even take off her coat. 

“Holy bajeezus,” Zack exhales. Ivy grunts in agreement. 

Carmen throws an arm over her face. “How’re we looking, Player?”

“Not too shabby, Red. Using a box truck as a getaway car seems to have worked out pretty well, especially since they didn’t see you get in. Maybe lie low for a day before you head out, but I think you’ll be just fine.”

“Perfect.” Carmen sighs. “Remind me to never rob a Swiss bank ever again.”

Player chirps, “Will do!” just as Ivy groans, “_Please_.” Being involved in a two-person conversation with four people present reminds Carmen of her recent conversation with Player. 

“Hey,” she says quietly, hoping to not catch the siblings’ attention. “Have you thought any more about…”

Player sighs. “I have. And I’ll tell you what I decided, _after _you take a nap. All three of you, okay?” Carmen groans. “And not on the floor!”

Carmen throws her arm off her face, tilts her head and says, “My hacker wants us to take naps in our beds.”

“You’ve got like, the nicest spy helper ever, huh.” Zack says as he pushes himself off the floor.

Carmen sits up enough to rest on her elbows as she watches Zack pull Ivy on her feet. “I’m not a spy, and he’s not a helper.”

If they weren’t all so tired, she thinks Zack might get pedantic about it, but instead he just shrugs with one shoulder and drags his sister off to their room. Carmen sits up and pulls off her wig, runs her fingers through her armpit-length hair.

“You better actually tell me when I wake up,” she grumbles as she climbs to her feet, leaving the wig behind on the table. “I wanna win that fight with Zack.”

Ever-so-quietly, she hears Player mutter, “What...fight…”, but she doesn’t think she was supposed to hear it, really, so she doesn’t say anything. Just collapses face first on her bed, murmurs a muffled “Good night,” to Player, and drifts off to sleep.

———

“So, to start, he’s my best friend. Means a lot more to me than a simple ‘helper’. Secondly, he’s a fourteen year old Canadian who’s smarter than most professional criminals I’ve met, and trust me, I’ve met a lot of them.”

“Carmen,” Player grumbles in her ear.

“Hush,” she says, and keeps going. “This whole thing you’ve joined me on, trying to take down V.I.L.E. one job at a time? It would never have gotten off the ground if it weren’t for him. Frankly, I’d probably be working for V.I.L.E. if it weren’t for him.” 

Zack and Ivy are sitting across from her on a couch, both listening intently. Ivy looks serious, like she can tell how important this is to Carmen. Zack, wide-eyed, seems mildly alarmed, like he didn’t expect it to be this serious.

“He’s the only one out of the four of us that has parents, but they don’t have a clue what he does. He’s been homeschooled for awhile, but since he loves tech so much, they basically let him set his own schedule as long as his schoolwork gets done. Which _means_,” Carmen says with faux cheer, “As ridiculous as it is for his sleep schedule, he’ll be awake at the same time we are when it’s nine AM Bern time and three AM his time.”

“Okay! Okay, I get it, geez,” Player exclaims. “How about you let me talk to them now?”

“Oh, you changed your mind, did you?” Carmen asks. “Thought you wanted to leave this to me for now.”

“Yeah, well, that was before you decided to be all embarrassing and harass me or whatever. Go get your laptop, I’m video calling you.”

Carmen smirks and stands up.

“Uh, what’s happening?” Zack asks.

“He decided he wants to introduce himself.” Carmen’s smirk turns into a smile. “I can’t wait—I think you guys’ll really like him.”

———

_coda._

One afternoon in San Diego, when Carmen is still recovering from her night in Stockholm, she wakes to the afternoon sun in her eyes. “Ivy?” she mumbles, but it’s Shadowsan who answers.

“The children are out buying supplies for the floor,” he says succinctly. Carmen shades her eyes and turns her head to see Shadowsan closing her laptop and setting it on the table. She chooses to ignore the fact that he called the siblings, a year older than her, ‘children’, and focus on something else.

“The floor?”

“They are going to redo it, apparently.” As one, they look down at it. It’s wood, and it’s kinda old and rough-looking. Carmen certainly won’t stop them from redoing it if they really want to; it’s not like they’re ever hurting for money.

“And Player?” she asks, gesturing to the closed laptop. 

Shadowsan nods slowly. “He is well. He asks after you frequently. Perhaps you can call him later today, if you have the energy.”

Carmen murmurs an affirmation, but she isn’t gonna get her hopes up. She hasn’t even tried to sit up, all she’s done is turned her head to see Shadowsan. Her energy levels are _low_. 

But she misses Player. She misses talking to him, misses referencing their inside jokes, misses quipping historical and geographical facts back and forth with him, usually to Zack and Ivy’s bemusement or annoyance. She misses the probably bad habit they both have of leaving their communicators on at literally all hours, misses knowing she could ask, “Player?”, and have an almost sure answer, every time. Carmen reaches up to brush her ears, but her piercings are empty. They have been since they took her to the hospital in Sweden. Carmen blinks away the small rush of tears in her eyes.

“You were right,” Shadowsan says gently, “To call him your secret weapon.”

Carmen sniffs quietly. “What?” she asks. She looks at Shadowsan and sees him watching her with a rare look of calm understanding. Carmen resists the urge to rub at her eyes. She’s _not _crying, and she’s _not _tired, so she’s not gonna rub her eyes in front of Shadowsan for no reason.

“When you first…‘introduced’ me to him, in Rio de Janeiro, you called him your secret weapon.” Shadowsan looks down at the coffee table between them, pulling the laptop open again. “A more apt description, I could not come up with. The two of you together—with the others’ help—have accomplished what I once thought to be the impossible. Standing against V.I.L.E., quite successfully, I might add.”

Carmen grants him a small smile. He’s not wrong. Her relationship with Player is the single most influential thing in her life, Shadowsan finding her on a roadside in Argentina aside.

Without him, the hard drive she stole would’ve been little more than a metal box. She never would’ve been able to sabotage any V.I.L.E. missions. Maybe she never would’ve stolen the drive in the first place without Player’s encouragement.

Maybe she never would’ve left the island without him.

“Hey, Red, you’re awake!”

Player’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts, and she once again tilts her head, only to see Shadowsan has turned the laptop to face her, and Player’s smiling face is filling the screen. She laughs and meets Shadowsan’s eye.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. He leaves her with a nod, placing the laptop on her lap. Carmen manages to adjust so her head and shoulders are at least a little upright. Her neck will probably be sore later, but it doesn’t matter.

“How are you?” Player asks seriously. Carmen takes a moment to study his face; she doesn’t video call him on her laptop as much these days, so often on the move as they are. It’s been over a year since she met him in person, and she knows he’s turning sixteen soon. _Sixteen!_ And she can see the changes; his face is growing more angular, his voice getting deeper. 

There’s sunlight streaming in through his curtains, pulled open by his mother, probably. The natural light illuminates his brown skin in a way blue computer light usually doesn’t. She can tell some of the posters on his walls have changed since she was there. How have they made it this far? Well, as cheesy as it is, she knows the answer is: _together_.

“Red?” he asks again, pulling her from her rambling thoughts. He raises an eyebrow at her, concerned but patient. She smiles.

“I’m okay,” she says, certainty ringing in her voice. She leans her head back against the pillow and rubs at her eyes. She’s still so tired, and okay, maybe a little weepy, not that she’d ever admit it. But that’s alright. No need to hide or impress when it’s just Player. “I’m okay.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i started this back in january, wrote about 1000 words, then abandoned it until this october when i binge watched season 2 and fell into a 'cant stop loving team carmen' hole. and now i have two more wips for this fandom i hope to put out eventually!
> 
> back when we just had season 1, carmen and player were the heart of the story, the biggest draw for me. i wanted to know _everything_ about them, so i decided to just fill in the gaps i was craving to know myself!
> 
> thank you for reading! kudos and comments are much loved. if you like, you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/alinastarkovas) or on [tumblr](https://tanosoka.tumblr.com)
> 
> EDIT 22/03/2020: found out about the canon character ages from the q&a with the showrunner (player 16, zack 18, ivy 19, carmen 20) and i decided to accept half of it for my fics (player and carmen) and throw the other half out (the siblings). something about the sibs being older than carmen just really appeals to me and i cant let that go rn. as far as player goes tho, all i had to do was make him another year younger, which is what i went thru and edited in this fic today. he really was 12 when he hacked her phone! they are so precious.


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